The Nativity scene at 800

A few weeks before Christmas in the year 1223, St. Francis told one of his brothers that he wished to celebrate the holiday in Greccio, a hamlet about halfway between Assisi and Rome. He added something more: that he wanted to see with his own eyes the baby born in Bethlehem and the crude stable where he lay.

The brother went on ahead and arranged everything as the saint had asked in a little grotto just outside the town, a scene now familiar to us–figures of Mary and Joseph, the shepherds, the ox and the ass. The sight drew men and women from around Greccio and delighted Francis, who served as a deacon at Mass that Christmas night. The tradition of the Christmas manger scene was born.

It’s a tradition that thrives all over the world, but especially in Italy. It’s also an example of what is known to theologians as “inculturation,” the way the Gospel enters into different cultures and finds ever-new expression in their traditions. The traditional Nativity scenes of Italy, especially Naples, often include dozens, even hundreds, of figures going about the tasks of daily life–shopkeepers, bakers, fruit vendors, beggars, musicians, servants, housewives, children, farmers, you name it. Dress and architecture in the scenes reflect the daily life of those who create them.

The sensibility behind this rich tradition goes back to the Incarnation itself. It’s the heart of the Christmas message. God wants to be seen, and he has taken on flesh to reveal himself to us. Catholics believe that he continues to be seen and touched and tasted when we encounter him in the sacraments, which of course only leave us wanting more. The instinct to encounter the Lord in the flesh is what has driven religious art, both the high art of the renaissance and the baroque and more folksy traditions like the Nativity scene.

The same sacramental instinct is also the driving force for the way of prayer St. Ignatius of Loyola called “contemplation.” He wasn’t the first, of course, to think of using the imagination and the senses in prayer, but he developed a remarkable method for doing so. When we pray as Ignatius suggests, imagining the Gospel stories coming to life before us, concentrating on the details of sound and smell and all the rest, perhaps imagining a bit of backstory as well, we put ourselves into the Gospel and it comes alive.

A very contemporary example of the instinct that guided both St. Francis and St. Ignatius is the great series The Chosen, the fourth season of which will be released next year. It’s a series on the life of Jesus, but focuses on the disciples, imagining what their lives were like, the tensions, hopes, doubts, confusion, fear, joy, love they would have felt when called to follow Jesus. The Chosen is not a historical documentary, but more like an extended Ignatian contemplation, a mix of Biblical texts and contemporary human dynamics. I’m looking forward to season four.

This year marks 800 years since St. Francis thought to create a Nativity scene in Greccio, and I was happy to make a brief pilgrimage there with a Jesuit brother this fall. I’m also delighted to see the success of a contemporary variation on this ancient theme in the popularity of The Chosen. The desire to see the humanity of Jesus with our own eyes is just as compelling as ever.